Hammer Made Easy

Manual_Monaro Said:

No doubt there will be mappers who reply that to make good levels you need understand the complexities of the applications and if people can’t be bothered to learn then they shouldn’t be making maps. These people have little or no empathy for new learners and should be ignored.

Exactly. They were once learners. Sure, some people have a natural talent for map building, (Well, in my opinion.) but they really should give empathy to newbies.

I must say that it’s mostly true that with more advanced engines comes a much steeper learning curve for producing custom content. Take the BUILD engine. (Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood etc.) It uses what we say as ‘primitive’ graphics (Nowadays.) but it has a much shallower learning curve than, say, Hammer. Once you learn the hotkeys, combinations and other tidbits, you can quickly pump out average to good quality levels.

I haven’t tried either the FPS creator or Pariah, but the ‘building blocks’ process is easy to picture. Take most RTSs. If the map editors were as simple as those that are released with this genre, then it’d be dead easy to make a brand new map.

Nevertheless, I do agree that these maps (In an FPS.) would probably be of lower quality, but there could be at least some decent ones that people bring out to play.

I have to note, however, that the closest thing to an ‘easier’ hammer is a HL2 random map generator. I haven’t tried that either, but it looks to be at least a good start. I couldn’t find it on HL2 Files {Where I first found it. Huh!?) so no link at the moment…

Simple. If mapping was easy enough that Jimbo the Monkey could do it, then we would be swarming in half-arsed unintelligent maps and mods!

Half-Life 2 hammer is made for map makers. Those who train in the art and know. If you havn’t noticed, most map editors among the games are actually quite similiar.

Usually, you either have two types of map makers. Either simple, or advanced. Simple allows your every day game player to throw up a map with some familiarization to the editor. Advanced allows those with the genius to create fantastic works of art (Or fail to). If you try to strike a balance between the two, then you get arguments from both sides that it’s too hard and too simple. It’s hard to win.

Advanced and complicated map makers are more mainstream then non-advanced. If you want an example of an easy map editor, I wholefully recommend downloading Starsiege: Tribes ( http://www.pcrpg.org/main.php?action=viewpage&page=downloads&viewfile=1 ,don’t worry, ’tis freeware!). That game has a map editor that any feces-throwing monkey can use.

FarCry has an awesome editor too, especially when using other people’s maps instead of making your own terrain (something I never figured out).

I agree with Phillip. A few months ago I tried to learn mapping to create Half-Life 2 maps. I was discouraged when I was unable to create even semi-good maps. This poses a problem for many novice mappers, because many of the things that seems natural while playing the game are not quite so intuitive while mapping.

Meh. I guess Our Lord and Savior Fluffy The Hamster is right, we should at least listen to those ‘veteran’ mapppers. But there are some who seem to shun those who are simply new to the whole thing. Still, at least there are those who don’t ’shun’ Mr. (Or Mrs.) Newbie. Many even help out newcomers or at least give out some constructive critisism. Those type of people are the ones I like very much.

I’m still on Phillip’s side with the building block editor idea, but Fluffy has made some good points nonetheless.

There was a wealth of information on using Valve Hammer Editor (formerly known as WorldCraft, and there may still be tutorials that call it that) back when I mapped for Half-Life 1. The new Hammer doesn’t seem to be too much different from the old one (I converted one of my maps) so old WorldCraft tutorials might help as well…but you may just be reading defunct information.

Our Lord and Savior Fluffy The Hamster Said:

Why did you need to use “*******” in your reply. I insulted nobody just expressed my view.

I didn’t need to. Like most people, I enjoy swearing.

Most (if not all) of the map editors that come with games are the map editors the professionals use themselves to make that game, meaning that the map editors are designed for professionals! To dismiss the fact that if you want to map like a professional, then you must learn how to use professional tools is downright stupid.

Our Lord and Savior Fluffy The Hamster Said:

firba1 Said:

Why did you need to use “*******” in your reply. I insulted nobody just expressed my view.

I didn’t need to. Like most people, I enjoy swearing.

Most (if not all) of the map editors that come with games are the map editors the professionals use themselves to make that game, meaning that the map editors are designed for professionals! To dismiss the fact that if you want to map like a professional, then you must learn how to use professional tools is downright stupid.

But, you miss the point that these people don’t necessarily want to start mapping “like professionals”. They may just want to start at an amateur level, then move up to Hammer’s more professional level. That is all Phillip is trying to say. To make an analogy, when you learn math in school, you don’t just start on graphing parabolas in the 2nd grade. You want to work up to that, but not immediately. In the mean time, the 2nd graders are graphing parabolas, others are saying that they are not doing it correctly or good enough. The same type of thing happens in the mapping community, especially when mappers are beginning.

planetphillip Said:

I accept that there is plenty of information available but I continue to question its value for complete beginners. Especially older players who have not grown up with computers and don’t find everything intuitive.

I was a complete newb to level design when I started with Hammer for HL1. I made some oopses like you should expect from any newb. However, I didn’t deal much with scripted sequences or anything. I did mostly deathmatch levels and the most complex things I ever made were a spinning ceiling fan, a gun turret, and a push-able toilet.

there was one official Hammer site that I uses, and I think it was called “Verc collective”, but that was years ago. I don’t even recognize it anymore: http://collective.valve-erc.com/

firstly, age is irrelevant. Donald Knuth is 70 years old, and let me tell ya — that guy gets computers more than I ever will.

But…there are just some people that are so far out there…like my grandmother. I let her use my computer once and you know what she did? she sat down, put her hand on the mouse backwards, started at the screen of the switched-off machine, and said “how do you make it go?”

I’m a Systems Administrator by career, and I deal with all kinds of people. some get computers, some don’t. some have been educated enough so that they can manage a spread sheet or so, but their brains just work different.

Don’t get mad at that, let me explain:

I started fussing with computers when I was about 6 years old. I sat in front of a computer ever since (I’m 21 now) and the way I see the world is not the way others see the world. because I was attached to a computer from such an early age, I believe I learned to learn differently.

I’m not just rattling off… it’s also said that people like me are far more susceptible to develop OCD.

manipulating 3d space is another topic altogether.

Software is as easy as it’s ever going to get in terms of presentation, though ergonomics can always be improved upon.

The problem certainly lies within education of the subject of the software.

If I were to write a tutorial, I’d write it in three parts:

1.) Explain the structure of the tutorial and a list of everything that will be taught. This way the student can go research other things if necessary to comprehend the entirety of this tutorial

2.)Fully teach the subject with as little reference to the software as possible

3.) Explain all the “this is what this button does” kind of stuff.

This way, not only does the student learn gradually instead of all at once, but he will quit the tutorial long before the second part if he can’t comprehend the subject and won’t blame his inability to understand the subject on the software. If he quits in the middle of the second part, we wouldn’t have wasted his time with the program which represents it because he cant comprehend the subject of the program in the first place.

I would write it so that sections 2 and 3 complement each other as best as possible, so thta the student would only have to read as much as he wants to know before looking to the third section of how the program represents his task.

Also, if the person already knows the subject but hasn’t had any experience with the program, he can skip right to the last section.

I’ve never written a tutorial before, and for all I know this method may be horrible…but it’s certainly what I would try first.

Yeah, cause my copy of Photoshop has a “Mountains Scenery” filter, level editors should have that kinda stuff too!

I have to say, you missed the mark on this one.

Adding in lots of prefabs that allow a newcomer to cobble together something quickly is also a bad idea IMHO. Personally I think Hammer comes with too many static props as is, there are far to many truly horrible maps around were people without a clue have tossed together elements without thinking about them simply because they are there and they looked cool.

Mapping is more than just technical proficiency with a slew of software applications, there’s a lot of theory and well placed thought behind those layers of tech wizardry. As an artist, once you come to understand what creating environments for games is about, the technical aspects are a lot easier to grasp and work with.

Defiantly gotta say nay to the “lesne flare” filters for game editors. Do the hard work, get the good results. Cheap cookie cut solutions are and always will be cheap and not with the hard disk space they occupy.

If you enjoy building things then there are already a wealth of FPS creators around to play with. Claymoring for game develoeprs to create point-n-click tools to appease your whims will simply add to development time, costs and as a result saturate the mod communities with hords witless mods, maps and general ****. No thanks.

An old post now, I realize, but I thought I’d put in my two pence. The thing I find with map editors such as hammer - is that they’re not in fact hard - they just require that you put a bit of thought and a imagination into the process. In Hammer, there’s not really many buttons and boxes, what you see is what you get, and there’s no magic set of tools that does things for you. You build your level from brushes, entities, and textures. And on the techincal side, the difficulty is no more than that - you just have to learn how to place entities, draw and manipulate brushes, and apply textures - not too much of a learning curve. The real difficulty in using a proper map editor such as Hammer is artistic - there are no prefabs, no one to have an imagination for you, you’re doing it yourself, and as long as the idea’s clear in your head, Hammer should not hold you back. Sure, it takes time to do what you want to do, but it’s not actually difficult per-say. Hammer merely requires patience, and some time and effort to make a good level - not computer genius.